We Will Not Relent
by whirlyite
Summary: "General Burkhalter has not been seen or heard from since the last Allied air raid on Berlin earlier this month, Herr Kommandant." These words of Major Hochstetter, from my previous story "Never Give In", raise the following question: What happened to General Burkhalter? Oneshot.


**We Will Not Relent**

_"You cannot win this war._ _Against you are arrayed resources and materials far greater than your own. This war is as repulsive to us as it is to you, but do not forget that England, once forced into war, will wage it unwaveringly to the end. England's nerves are strong, her resources inexhaustible. We will not relent." - Excerpt from leaflet EH.276, of which over 5 million were airdropped over northern and western Germany during 5/9 September 1939 by the RAF._

"_They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." - Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris_

_Sunday, 4 February 1945_

He slowly returned to consciousness to find himself covered in dust, a suffocatingly heavy pall of thick, fine dust. What little air there was tasted of dirt and burnt timber; it was stale, dank, and hot, making breathing virtually impossible. He choked, gagging on the dry powder clogging the back of his throat as he slowly achieved full consciousness. He finally blinked enough of the abrasive grit out of his eyes only to find that he could see nothing – everything was pitch black. Neither could he hear anything. Even if there was any sound, he probably could not tell otherwise as he was quite certain that both of his eardrums were completely ruptured.

He tried to pinpoint just exactly where he was. The last thing he remembered was rushing down the stairwell of his office building's basement air raid shelter when a thunderous bang sounded directly behind him. It had been followed by a strikingly blinding flash of light accompanied by a dull rumbling; he had then felt every bit of air being sucked out from his lungs before all went dark.

He struggled to move and despite the darkness, quickly discovered that he was confined within an impossibly small space. There seemed to be an immovably heavy weight of some sort pinning him down at the hips and he was thankful that he could feel nothing from his waist down. He felt an annoyingly cold, sticky sensation on the right side of his face and instinctively reached to touch it. He clumsily swiped the right side of his face and nearly passed out from the pain that engulfed him. Apparently his jaw was badly broken and the clammy, turgid liquid was his own rapidly congealing blood.

So, it had all come down to this.

He loudly cursed the Allies with every vile, prurient phrase he knew, not caring there was no one around to hear. First the English Air Force carpet-bombed the area with a lethal mix of high explosives and incendiaries for the entire night before; now, in the smoky daylight, the damned Americans had come to destroy what little was left! He thanked God that he had had the foresight to convince Berta to go stay with her sister's family in Dresden. There were no targets of military consequence in the ancient city for the Allies to attack so she would at least be spared from the horror of this relentless bombing.

_Berta!_ He saw a vision of her face, not as she was now but as the beautiful young woman she had been when they had first met back in the heady days of the doomed Weimar Republic; he had been her knight in shining armor back then, a brash young Lieutenant climbing his way up the ranks in the Reichswehr. It seemed like such a long time ago. He knew that as the years passed he had not been the best husband he could've been, what with his wandering eye and insistent hands. _Oh, well. What is done, is done!_ That particular window of regret had opened and closed very nearly simultaneously. He sighed, _Ah, Berta,_ _I am sorry, my dear. I do not believe that we shall see each other again. I pray you survive this barbarity and live to a ripe old age. Please know that my last thoughts were of you._

The face of his sister Gertrude suddenly appeared and he wondered if she had suffered the same fate as he. There had been no word from her during the nearly two weeks since she had returned to stay in the family home in Charlottenburg. He prayed that she had somehow escaped the terror of the Allied onslaught from above.

They say your entire life flashes before your eyes when you are dying. Was that why this catalogue of familiar faces began impudently parading themselves across his vision?

Another image unexpectedly popped into his mind, that of Wilhelm Klink. _Klink!_ What a self-important, incompetent, strutting popinjay. He had never made good on any of his numerous threats to send the hapless Luftwaffe Colonel to a combat unit on the Eastern Front. It was just as well; perhaps keeping Klink in the rear echelon would turn out to be his only truly practical contribution to the Reich's war effort. But Klink was not to be pitied after all, as Stalag 13 would more than likely be liberated by either the American or British armies sweeping in from the west. He had no desire to wish the Bolsheviks even upon Klink.

He groaned inwardly as the memory of Klink brought yet another face into view. _Hogan!_ He had badly underestimated the highly confident, intelligent, ranking American POW. Hochstetter had probably been correct; Hogan was more than likely the infamous Underground leader Papa Bear. He idly wondered what had happened to the dyspeptic Gestapo officer. Well, there was nothing to be done for it now. He was somehow sure that when the Allies liberated Stalag 13, Hogan would not hesitate to protect Klink and his equally inept Sergeant of the Guard, Schultz. He resigned himself to the fact that Hogan had also most likely been the de facto commander of the prison camp all along.

The Americans and the British would certainly be preferable to the bitterly vengeful Russian hordes rapidly steamrolling their way towards Berlin from the Oder. Perhaps being trapped in this mound of rubble was a blessing in disguise. He had had a premonition at the beginning of the war that he would not survive. It was just a matter of how and by what means the end would come. If captured, the Americans would at least conduct a formal trial before they put the noose around your neck. With those miserable Russians, you would be fortunate to receive a hot bullet in the back of the head.

No matter, it made no real difference. All was lost and there was no hope. Weren't the RAF and the American Air Force responsible for his current situation? He finally decided that East and West both were equally damnable, just in different manners.

He tried to lift his head to see if there was any gap in the debris encasing him and suddenly caught the steadily increasing odor of something burning. He squirmed a bit to get a better view and barely made out a dim, flickering light coming from the area where his legs were pinned beneath the debris. The light gradually increased and he finally realized its significance; there was a furiously burning fire less than a meter from his feet!

_God in heaven – not that!_

He had been wearing his sidearm constantly since the news had come that the Russians had crossed the Oder and he could barely feel the butt of the Walther pistol where it pressed into his hip. He worked to wedge his hand down as far as he could, swallowing hard against the unrelenting pain as he desperately stretched to reach the holster. His fingers brushed uselessly against the walnut grip several times before he was finally able to grasp it and gradually ease the gun from the holster. It proved nearly impossible to bring his arm back up to his upper torso with the heavy weight of the pistol and it took all his concentration to avoid dropping it.

As he wrestled with the gun, the flames reached his boots and the acrid smell of burning leather filled the small space. He thanked God that he couldn't feel the pain from the fire. His eyes filled with tears as he struggled to line the nozzle of the Walther against his temple. He wedged his finger against the trigger and closed his eyes.

_Berta! Gertrude! Mein Führer! I am sorry. God forgive me!_

_Farewell!_


End file.
